How to fast-track (expedite) a paper and what are the benefits?

Authors sometimes have to meet publication deadlines, e.g. for promotion & tenure or thesis defence, grant proposals, spending of research funds before a certain deadline, publication of follow-up papers, or because the findings are deemed important.

To facilitate a speedy turn-around when a rapid decision is required, JMIR offers a review and publishing track which aims at reviewing and publishing extra-fast without compromising quality.

If you opt for fast-track review and premium publishing, you are guaranteed

a rapid editorial decision for the 1st review round (and - if sent out for peer-review) peer-review comments within 3 weeks (plus any additional holidays within that period)* after submission and/or payment of the fee, and

if the final paper is accepted, publication of your paperwithin 4 weeks** after acceptance and payment of the fee.

In order to take advantage of this, authors must pay a non-refundable fast-track fee (FTF) of $450, on top of and in addition to any other submission/publication fees (see Fee Schedule).

Fast-track should be requested within 24 hours after submission, but we also allow authors to expedite the submission at any time during the peer-review process.

Some fine-print:

We reserve the right to refund the fast-track fee and process the manuscript in the regular submission track if we are unable to meet the deadline due to a delayed peer-review report or other issues beyond our control.

The fast-track fee is not refundable if we reject the paper (with or without peer-reviews) in the time period stipulated above.

Paying a fast-track fee does not guarantee peer-review. While we rarely reject manuscripts without external peer-review (known at other journals as editorial "desk-review"), we reserve the right to reject the paper promptly and without external review if the paper is out of scope or has obvious flaws, and we will not refund the FTF as long as we keep our promise to make this decision within 3 weeks.

To fast-track (expedite) a submission, follow the link in the submission acknowledgement email, or go to your author manuscript center and look for the "expedite now" link next to your submitted manuscript title (see screenshot below).

Footnotes:

* Canadian, US and European bank holidays, and excluding the days in the period between Dec 23rd - Jan 1st (of each year).

** not including the period between Dec 23rd-Jan 1st. Days where we wait for a response of the author(s) to copyediting or proofreading requests are also not counted

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Tip:

Are you looking for a rapid decision because you wish to cite your work in a grant proposal?

make your paper available as Preprint (What are JMIR Preprints?). When you submit a paper to a JMIR journal, select "Open Peer-Review" as an option (What is open peer-review?). Your paper will then get a DOI and is immediately after submission citable as Preprint, which many grant agencies such as NIH or MRC now encourage.